Magic Hour

"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for DC Comics zombie supervillain Solomon Grundy to tap into his ((surely)) ample record collection for the sonic manna that will aid him in making it through another rough day of shambling, trudging, and smashing the shit out of Green Lantern, I'm pretty sure the first record he slaps on his Slaughter Swamp turntable is Brimstone Howl's Magic Hour. Recorded in 2009 with percussion / production / Facebook Scrabble legend Jim Diamond at the helm, Magic Hour is the sound of a thermonuclear cadre of doomed Nebraskans trying to fry humanity with one last blast of Soul Radiation In The Dead Of Night before they end it all by throwing themselves bodily into the swamp, only to find that all the good Kryptonite is in Kansas and the closest thing to a swamp they have is Council Bluffs, Iowa. Every song on Magic Hour is a tense, desperate, full-blast marvel ((oops, wrong comic book company)); like the Reigning Sound's hulking ((oops, wrong company again)) younger brother, like "Born To Run" for zombie supervillains, like the Exploding Hearts dragged behind a pickup truck through four hundred miles of cornfields and Cenex station parking lots. Every song-whether it involve feral cats or copping feels on Ferris wheels-comes with the built-in supposition that the main character will die by the end of the song; even when it's not explicitly stated that this is the case ((it never actually is)), it's almost impossible to imagine that each song's character doesn't die, off-screen, a minute or two after the song's conclusion. Cop Those Feels Quickly, Kid; The Apocalypse Is Gonna Be Here Before You Know It. Magic Hour is an album so desperate and vital that the liner notes are printed on the front cover as a customer service, lest slavering, duck-billed mutants rend the potential buyer asunder before they have the chance to glance at the back cover. To be clear, Magic Hour will not save your life. It will, however, allow you to live out your remaining time on this earth with a modicum of dignity. None can ask fairer than that!"-Rev. Norb Rozek